


Pound of Flesh

by Softlight



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Character Study, Dark!Laurent, Emotions are here, Gen, Gore, No seriously do not come here expecting fluff, Other, Scene Study, Torture, abuse mention, blood mention, death mention, sexual abuse mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 02:13:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7782868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Softlight/pseuds/Softlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I will see him break.  I will not rest until he is in fragments at my feet, begging for mercy.  And then I’ll do it again, and again, and again, until he understands a fraction of the pain he has inflicted.</p>
<p>What Laurent was thinking during the whipping scene in book one.  Spoilers for the entire series.  Not for the light hearted.  A darker character study of the Ice Prince from Vere.  Trigger warnings for sexual abuse mention, gore, torture, and blood mention.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pound of Flesh

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. Seriously, get out of here if you haven't read Kings Rising yet! And let me make this clear, I love Laurent, and I love Damen and Laurent together. But no one can tell me that Laurent was anything but malicious during this scene. I don't excuse his actions, but I wanted to understand them. Hence, my writing this. Please enjoy.

_I will see him break.  I will not rest until he is in fragments at my feet, begging for mercy.  And then I’ll do it again, and again, and again, until he understands a fraction of the pain he has inflicted._

* * *

 

From the first lash, you’re surprised by how delightful this is.  A whipping is vicious and bloody, but watching him _take it_ is deeply satisfying.  His face is a sinful delight to watch, his pain shallowly filling the hole that Auguste left.  The rage that is constantly bubbling beneath the your surface, always controlled, sings to life as his blood spills on the flower.  Revenge is sweet, but you cannot be sated with mere dessert.  It spoils one’s appetite.

His blood drips onto the floor in droplets, right after the delicious scream of the whip.  You focus on that for a moment, coolly watching Akielon blood sully the floors.

_Drip.  Bounce.  Fall._

He takes the pain well, but that’s the last thing you want.  What you _want_ is a bloodied mess of a man at your feet, barely clinging to life.  You wonder what would happen if he died, and the slick steel of anger that you’ve carefully crafted over the years says that while it would be satisfying, it would be far too fast, and you would soon crave something more.  However, accidents do happen, and as you watch his blood pour, you wonder about Auguste.

How the brute spilled his brother’s blood over the battlefield without a care as to what would result, killing without sense, without the knowledge of consequence.  A simple minded animal that just slayed and slayed until his hands ran with blood, hot and thick and sticky.  He hadn’t known what would happen after he took Auguste down, and it was high time he found out.  

He’s at best a barbarian, and at worst an animal- although animals can be trained.  He can only be broken.  At least, that’s all you’ll allow for.  Absolute obedience, absolute domination, absolute control.  Break the animal, or kill it trying.

You walk around to his back, quiet enough that he doesn’t notice.  The skin of his back splits surprisingly well, but never in clean lines.  Just a scrambled mess of bloody lines that seem to have no rhyme or reason.  You watch the whip for a moment, watch as it brutally carves the skin open and blood kisses once-sweet air for the first time.  Now, the air is filled with the scent of blood and sweat and _pain_ , and you half-heartedly wonder how much blood a man can lose before death takes him.  You retake your position against the wall.

Your own blood sings as his spills onto the floor, pounding deep in your head.  Your fingers twitch, and your heart feels ready to burst, but you feel almost free for the first time in years.  You rule yourself with constant control, and yet, as he groans, as the whip sings, as the sweat falls to the floor, as blood screams, you almost lose it.

_This_ is the man who killed Auguste.   _This_ is the barbarian who forced upon you consequences that no one- except you, if you’d been smarter, quicker, faster- could’ve foreseen or prevented.   _This_ is the animal upon whom you enact revenge, and everyone knows a wild animal is only good tamed or skinned.

So why not do both.  You have the patience for it.

You never were counting, but some time has passed.  He’s trembling like a leaf, but it’s more powerful than that; a lion, chained and rabid, is more akin to the impression he gives off.  But with every hit, he loses a little bit of whatever is keeping him fighting, and he’s laid bare.

The beast has been stripped down, and something in you snaps.

Before you, there is a man.

A man who bleeds scarlet, and screams when hit with a whip.  A man who has been betrayed by his own blood and lost a loved one without warning.  A man who is probably scared, and in the worst pain of his life, and in a new environment where vipers like you lie in the grass to bite and kill without a singular visible movement.  He is afraid, and he is human.

Before you, there is a man.

A man who only begins to fulfill his retribution with his scarlet blood and with his screams when hit with the whip.  A man who now knows the pain, the confusion, of losing faith in blood after cold betrayal and knows the emptiness of loss.  A man who is rightfully scared, purposely in the worst pain of his life at the moment, and in a new environment where you cannot wait to destroy him from inside out for everything he has done.  He should be afraid, and he cannot be called human.

Before you lies your brother’s killer.

You’ve decided not to kill him.  You think.  Honestly, your head is so loud you can barely hear anything over the roar of your blood and his stifled groans, the gentle splatter of blood onto the floor and the scratch of your boot against the rough stone.  

“I should have done this to you the day you arrived,” you hear yourself say.  He’s admittedly strong, but he doesn’t have the talent to conceal, and his pain is clear.  “It’s exactly what you deserve.”

“Why didn’t you?”  His voice is rough, as though he hasn’t spoken in years, not minutes.  It creaks, and you watch his throat move as he swallows, trying desperately to get moisture.  “You are cold-blooded and honourless.  What held back someone like you?”  

Cold.  So very, very cold.  From accounts of others, you know anger is hot, so burning that it scalds even the owner and destroys all those in its path.  Anger is meant to _burn_.  For some reason, your anger is frozen.  It is steel and ice, crisp and directed.  Its prickly frostiness stings, and it takes every ounce of self control to not twitch a singular muscle.

_Honourless_ .   _Honourless.  Honourless._  How dare he talk of honour when it was he who killed, he who slayed, he who _murdered_ Auguste.  How dare he call you honourless, when it was he who has wronged, not you.  Maybe you don’t have honour, but you have to avenge Auguste, and that in itself a worthy substitute.  

You want to sever his tongue from his body, but the waves of fury are nigh controlling you, and if you start talking too much, start acting on impulse, it will drown you.

“I’m not sure.  I was curious what kind of man you were.  I see we have stopped too early.  Again.”  You watch his face splinter into all sorts of pain as he waits for the strike that doesn’t come, and his limpid shoulders show he is broken.  It’s too late for you to accept that as acceptable penance for the day, not after his blatant crudeness.  

The man who held the whip looks at you with an odd twitch of the mouth.  “Your Highness, I’m not certain he’ll survive another round.”  He’s a sadist, typically reserved for the worst criminals, not supposed slaves, but apparently even he has his limits.  You eye the animal tied down, the fight in him not yet beaten out.

The cold fury consumes, and almost unnoticeably you feel your eye twitch.  You pass it off as a blink, frostiness expelling from every fiber of your being.  Your words are ice. “I think he will.  Why don’t we make a wager?  A gold coin says he lives.  If you want to win it from me, you’ll have to exert yourself.”  Not a drop of the anger roaring beneath seeps through, and control is reclaimed.

The crack of the whip is a reassuring sound, and the brute’s face breaks open from the pain.  His mouth is open around the gag that was once more shoved into his mouth, and his muted screams fill the room.  His body is caged in ways beyond the cuffs, and he still fights the whip.  But his resistance doesn’t last, and it’s not long before his body only flinches wildly after every _crack_.  His head hangs, and spittle is dripping from the corner of his mouth.

You have brought him here, here, to his lowest point.  He is chained, he is your’s to punish, your’s to break, and he is finally paying reparations.  

But not just for Auguste.

A curt head nod ends the penance, and you watch as he attempts to comprehend the pain.  After a few minutes of listening to his shallow breathing, you creep closer and force it out.  “I was on the field at Marlas.  They wouldn’t let me near the front.  I never had the chance to face him.”  A quick pause to steady your breath, although you weren’t trembling.  “I used to wonder what I’d say to him if I did.  What I’d do.  How dare any one of you speak the word _honour_?”  You spit it at the animal like poison, letting it seep in.  “I know your kind.  A Veretian who treats honourably with an Akielon will be gutted with his own sword.  It’s your countryman who taught me that.  You can thank him for the lesson.”  And comes the part you’ve waited for, the reason you’ve waited until the Regent was away, and your hands form hard fists.

“ _Thank who_ ?”  You’ve never heard a voice like his, and it’ll follow you into your dreams.  It’s dry, and cracked, and every syllable is soaked in pain.  His face is contorted in agony, and you almost start shaking.  You don’t.   _He deserves it_.

“Damianos, the dead Prince of Akielos.  The man who killed my brother.”   _You._ And then you leave him, for the servants and guards and healers will be at the ready as you had instructed.  You calmly walk towards your rooms, no noticeable change in your gait.  No one could sense the fury bubbling underneath, the well-contained tornado within.  From the outside, all you are is ice.

Your stomach twists with something, but it isn’t fury.  You can’t identify what you’re feeling, except that it twists your stomach viciously and makes your blood shake.  You know you’re not half finished with him, but with every passing second the twisting gets worse.

You lay on the bed, eyes staring pointlessly at the ceiling.  There’s a thousand other things to be doing, but something in your head isn’t processing correctly.   _But not just for Auguste_.

You turn onto your side, partially curling your knees into yourself.  The blankets are woven well, and your fingers run over the careful threads.  He never came in here, you were always summoned to him.  Never in your own rooms, which is the only blessing he ever bestowed upon you.

It’s not something you indulge in often, or one that you seek out.  But sometimes you have to remember, and all you can do is quietly bear it until you calm down.  It’s not that you’re not used to keeping things to yourself, but sometimes a crazy voice that you buried a long, long time ago pops up and tells you to just say it out loud and acknowledge it.

Every time it does that, you bury it deeper, but somehow it always comes back.

It’s easier to give in than to resist, but you always resist in the beginning. Flashes of skilled fingers traversing your flesh used to be enough to send you retching into the nearest chamber pot.  It’s better now, but not any easier.

The scenes flash rapidly before your eyes, but each second is an eternity.  It’s almost like you’re twelve, thirteen again, but you know where you are and that it’s over.  The memories are still inescapable, and there is no reprieve.

Jovial laughter, hushed whispers, sweat-slicked skin, confusion, promises to not tell _anyone, Uncle, I promise_ , all flood your mind.  Your body doesn’t feel like your own, and ever since he claimed it you don’t recognize it.  Yourself.  So you don’t think about it.  Or, rather, you try.

Mostly you succeed.

Mostly.

He had taken advantage of you.  That’s the one thought you allow, the one thought that flood your system and powers you through it all.  He took advantage of you, and for that he must pay.  He cannot be allowed to continue, can’t keep going through boys like they’re just toys waiting to be broken.

You, Nicaise.  How many others?  Too many.  Far, far too many.

All broken, in the end.  Twisted and corrupted and destroyed.

Except you’ve taken his broken pieces and formed a greater weapon than he could’ve ever imagined.  And you will destroy him for all that he has done.

But one step at a time, and before you even think about cutting the Regent down, it’s time to avenge Auguste.  Avenge your own loss of innocence, retaliate against the beast that has caused everything to have ever gone wrong.  It is time to avenge, and claim whatever you can from his flesh and soul.  He is your’s, at long last, and he will be the first of many deserving to suffer your wrath.

He deserves it more than anyone else.

The beast once known Prince Damianos of Akielos will surely give you his pound of flesh, and will do so until you decide to end him.


End file.
